BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Six years ago, cruise ships from Miami were dropping off boatloads of U.S. visitors at Havana’s port on a daily basis.

Since then, Carnival and Royal Caribbean have been replaced with Russian warships and a nuclear-powered submarine.

So…how did this happen?

Back to the Cold War

The cruise ships had been a key part of Obama’s historic detente with Cuba in 2014.

In the following two years, Cuba was flooded with U.S. corporations looking for business opportunities. Google partnered with Cuba’s communications company to install servers across the island. Tens of thousands of Cubans listed their bed and breakfasts with AirBnB. Marriott opened the first hotel with a U.S. brand in Cuba since 1959. And the Fast and Furious franchise filmed a high-speed race through the streets of Havana.

Secretary of State John Kerry officiated the re-opening of the U.S. Embassy in Havana, and more than a dozen U.S.-Cuba bilateral dialogues began on a host of issues, from counterterrorism to environmental protection.

Cuba was rapidly moving back into the U.S. sphere of influence for the first time since the country’s 1959 revolution.

Trump rolled it all back, scrapping Obama’s policy of engagement in favor of economic warfare. Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy, devised by Cuban-American hardliner Mauricio Claver-Carone, sought to strangle Cuba’s economy through a barrage of punishing sanctions.

“[The Cuban government] is not going to know what hits them,” Claver-Carone told TV Martí in 2019 while he was serving as director of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council under Trump. “When they think they can see a light at the end of the tunnel, that light is going to disappear.”

Trump barred the cruise ships from going to Cuba, and then implemented a law that opened the door to a half-billion-dollar lawsuit in Florida alleging the companies were illegally “trafficking” in stolen property.

U.S. visits to Cuba ground to a halt, dealing a crushing blow to Cuba’s tourism industry.

Perhaps more devastating was Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism (despite no credible evidence that Cuba in fact has sponsored terrorism), which cut the country off from international investment, credit and trade, leaving it vulnerable to the economic vicissitudes of COVID and worldwide inflation.

Biden Pushes Cuba Toward Russia

Despite promising a “new Cuba policy” during the 2020 campaign, Biden instead embraced Trump’s belligerent position.

Under siege from the United States, Cuba turned to its old ally.

“Cuba’s only hope to alleviate the immediate crisis, to put food on people’s tables and, literally, keep the lights on, is foreign help,” Cuba expert and American University Professor of Government William LeoGrande wrote in Responsible Statecraft. “That’s where Russia comes in.”

Russia has thrown Cuba an economic lifeline.

Moscow has ramped up investment on the island and forgiven most of Cuba’s old debts. In addition, the two nations have signed several cooperation agreements in biotech, banking and agriculture. Russians are Cuba’s fastest growing tourism market. And with Venezuela facing its own crisis in part due to U.S. sanctions, Russia has become a major supplier of oil to Cuba.

Cuba’s increasing dependence on Russia’s economic support has brought the two countries closer in other ways.

In the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Cuba staked out neutral ground, calling for “a diplomatic solution” by “peaceful means” and abstaining at the UN General Assembly on a resolution calling for Russia to withdraw.

Since then, Cuba has moved unequivocally to Russia’s side.

Last month, Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel attended Moscow’s Victory Day parade and wished Russia “success in the special military operation.”

More recently, Havana welcomed the three Russian warships and nuclear-powered submarine. The Cuban government said the visit represented the two nations’ “historic relationship of friendship.”

The U.S. responded by sending a fast-attack submarine to its Guantanamo naval base and anti-submarine planes to Cuba’s territorial waters.

“U.S. sanctions against Cuba have proven counterproductive,” wrote LeoGrande in Responsible Statecraft. “By exacerbating the economic hardships Cubans face, Washington’s policies have accelerated migration and left Cuba no alternative but to seek help from [our] strategic competitors.”